


The Malign Pharaoh

by KaedeRavensdale



Category: Original Work
Genre: Ancient Egypt, Daemons, Fantasy, Gods, Magic, May post more may not, Monsters, Novel WIP, Original work - Freeform, This is only the first chapter
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-07
Updated: 2017-07-07
Packaged: 2018-11-28 18:55:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,245
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11424054
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KaedeRavensdale/pseuds/KaedeRavensdale
Summary: Ma'at wanted a normal life. Kephri longed for something more adventurous. Both brothers were merely Peasant farmers, but a revelation about the truth of Ma'at's nature would turn all they've ever known on its head. Saving Egypt falls to them, but neither will survive the endeavor if the Pharaoh has anything to say about the matter.





	The Malign Pharaoh

**Author's Note:**

> Hey all; just posting this in case anyone wanted to take a look at my original WIP. I may post more chapters later I may not, it all depends on whether or not you guys want to see more or not. If there are ever long droughts of content from my fanfics it's either due to working on this or school projects.

List of Reasons Why I Hate the Color Red:

 

Reason #1 – I hate the color red because there’s no escaping it for me. Quite literally. It’s rather difficult to escape anything when it just so happens to be a part of your body. You can cover it up, you can pretend it isn’t there, but that isn’t going to make it go away. And for me, the color red is _never going away._

Reason #2 – I hate the color red because it makes me different, of course that much should be fairly obvious. After all, I live in a country where everyone’s hair is some variation of black or brown. Being that one odd person out with the vividly crimson hair would tend to make a guy stand out from the crowd. Make a guy get noticed. And that’s just about the worse thing imaginable with the Pharaoh around. The objective of just about everyone in the peasant class is _not_ to get noticed. No one wants to become Akhenaten’s new toy.

Reason #3 – I hate the color red because it’s all that stands between me and the only thing I’ve ever really wanted in the world: a normal life. Waking up every morning earlier than even the other farmers, who are already waking up before the sun can be bothered to, to dye my a hair a more natural black color with a mixture of Kohl and scented oils _doesn’t make_ for a normal life. Nor does living in constant fear that said primitive dye will wash out while I’m in the field working and reveal my ‘dirty little secret’ to the overseers because this is Egypt and Egypt is _hot_. You’re going to sweat if you’re planning on stepping outside at all. Even when the Nile is about two hundred yards to your right.

I could have kept going, but I had the creeping suspicion that if I attempted to keep listing off reasons why something as seemingly insignificant as a color had become the bane of my existence I wouldn’t be able to stop myself and as successful as doing so was in keeping my mind off of my _other_ issue-because it wasn’t fair that I _only_ had one potentially life threatening inescapable problem to deal with while everyone else around me had multiple simply dealt with smaller woes-it wasn’t exactly conducive to the work that I was supposed to be doing. Far from it, actually. And because of that fact I had fallen far behind my usual speed.

Again.

I blinked the sting of salt from my eyes and reached up to carefully wipe the sweat from my brow before dipping down to refill the winnowing scoop in my hand with the last dregs of the towering pile of barley beside me. My older brother had harvested the lot of it earlier that morning before he’d been reassigned to help some of the others in readying the canals now that the Shemu season was coming to an end; the Nile would be flooding soon.

The desert’s breath blew hot, slightly damp from the river nearby, and scattered the chaff like grey gold sand. The sun had begun to set, a smear of crimson and ocher left across the sky as it singed the ground beneath it black, and most of the other farmers had already headed back to their homes in Waset’s Hanging Dog District. I still had to finish the last few scoops of the mound and package the separated grain in the appropriate woven baskets before I could even think about doing the same.

I knew that my being late would cause my Aunt and Uncle to worry but the overseers would have my hide for sure if I left before I’d finished, end of the work day or not, and trouble with them was something that I simply couldn’t afford.

My position was precarious enough as it was.

“Correct me if I’m wrong, but I do believe that this is the third time this week, if not in as many days, that this has happened.” I nearly toppled off the uneven block of stone I stood on, the coarse wooden tool clattering from my hands. Bits of grain and chaff scattered the Khemet’s dark soil. “What’s wrong with you, Ma’at? This isn’t normal.”

I huffed at him, the irrigated soil making a soft squelch as I jumped down. Black mud squeezed between my toes, the hue contrasting sharply with my gold-toned skin as it joined the thin crust already dried there. “Your sneaking up on me certainly isn’t helping, ebien!” I gave up the spilled grain for lost and went to pick up one of the baskets which lay nearby.

“Swearing? Now I’m sure that something is wrong with you. Has the field mouse really turned himself into a lion in the few hours I’ve been away?”

The grain was hard and cold against my calloused palms and the little pins at their ends dug into my skin at odd angles. They spilled into the basket with a hiss like pooling sand.

“Come on, little brother. Something’s on your mind, and don’t deny it; I can tell.”

I scooped up another large handful and continued to ignore him, but true to form my brother failed the catch the hint.

“You’ve been spacy recently. You’re normally too busy being nervously over cautious to be spacey. It’s honestly starting to concern me, did you know that? Especially considering that you’re usually one of the first finished for the day; you’re works been slowing down more and more every day.”

“It’s nothing, Kephri! Just drop it, please.”

My brother folded muscled arms over his chest and shot me a decidedly unimpressed look. He was even more thoroughly covered in mud than I was-really it was to be expected, given the assignment that he’d had-but the richly colored earth blended much better with his russet skin than it did with mine.

Why did _everything_ about me make me stand out; the only normal thing about me was my eyes! Pretty soon I’d have to start up another Reasons Why I Hate the Color list, only this time for gold.

“Ma’at.” I snapped back to attention at his warning tone and immediately realized that my hair had begun to stand on end; I quickly smoothed it out again, giving myself a nasty shock in the process. “Clearly whatever’s eating you is quite the troublesome slice of ‘nothing’. You only ever do that when you’re well and truly upset.”

I knew that it wasn’t me, but rather the powers I couldn’t control, that he was afraid of but it still hurt to see the hesitance with which he approached me. Kephri paused with his hand inches away from making contact to insure I wouldn’t shock him without meaning to before resting it on my shoulder.

The air around us smelled strongly of ozone.

“Has that been happening a lot? Using Heka without meaning to? Is that what’s on your mind?”

“No. That was…I was just thinking about…I’m different. I’m not normal, I’ll never fit in! I’ll never be anything more than a freak!”

He scowled. “Don’t say that.”

“Then what would you call it?” if the stalks around us hadn’t already been reaped they’d have withered. “What would you call what I am, Kephri, if not a freak?”

“My brother.” I opened my mouth to argue but he covered it with his hand; his palm tasted of salt and dark earth. “So what if you’re not ‘normal’. Normal is boring anyway; we’re surrounded by it. Look around. Do you really want to live like this for the rest of our lives? Doing this? I don’t. To Duat with ‘normal’. To Duat with the whole lot of them! You’re my brother, no matter how much shit I may give you, and that’s all that matters. Say it.”

I shook my head and hid behind my fringe but couldn’t keep the reluctant smile from unfurling on my face.

“Ma’at, say it.”

“No matter how much shit you give me.”

“That’s right.” He clapped me on the back hard enough that I was sure it had left a mark and began to fill the other basket.

“Thank you, Kephri,” I said, “for feeding me my lines.”

“Someone had to do it, didn’t they? You never talk on your own.”

“I talk plenty!”

“Not when other people are around; you’re near mute during the day.”

I turned my head. “It’s easier that way.”

I didn’t need to look at him to know that the jovial gleam had fled from his burnt umber eyes. “I hate this. Seeing you like this. I hate that you have to hide. It’s not fair and you don’t deserve it.”

“Maybe not but it’s the way things are. Better to make due as best I can, isn’t it? To have some sort of life rather than none at all?” I carefully settled the lid of the basket into place and hoisted it up onto my back. The jagged edges of the rush that it was woven from poked into the bare skin between my shoulder blades; the sensation an itch that I’d long since grown used to. “As for your earlier little statements about how normal is ‘boring’ need I remind you that society would crumble without normal? Without farmers, where would everyone get their food?”

“Hunters? Fishermen? Imports?” Kephri rose to his feet as well, the second basket slung across his own back.

“A diet of only meat fish and fowl would _not_ be healthy, and you and I both know that the goods brought in by merchants are considered luxuries for a reason. There’s no way that Peasants like us would ever be able to afford them.”

“I see a flaw in your logic brother.”

“Oh?” I smirked. “And what would that be?”

“I wouldn’t _be_ a peasant, I’d be a soldier. Third on the social ladder, below only the Pharaoh himself and the nobility scribes and Priests. My wages would be more than enough to support our family.” Catching sight of my expression my brother did a double take. “What are you smirking for, nti hati?”

“You really think that you could be a soldier?”

“I’d make a marvelous soldier! I have more than enough constitution for the training given all the years I’ve spent out in the fields, and I’m as brave as any lion! On the field of battle, I’d be a force to be reckoned with!”

“What about your inability to follow orders?”

“Inability? I wouldn’t call it an inability, Ma’at! I’m perfectly capable of following orders when I want to show the necessary discipline!”

“And your problems with authority?”

“I’m over that now, thank you very much!”

“Right.” My eyes fell on the fresh lash mark on his back, partially visible beneath the basket that he carried. It couldn’t have been more than an hour old. “Where’d you get that, then?”

“The overseer was Haroeri’s Hmar of a son.”

“Kephri!

“All I did was tell him to leave us to do our work and go join the rest of the hippopotamuses in the river.”

“Sun God’s mercy, Kephri!”

“What? You have to admit that he looks like one.” Well, it was certainly clear which of the two of us monopolized the backbone. How he could dare to do and say half of what he did, never mind be utterly unrepentant about it, was entirely beyond me. “Come on, if _that_ can get in then I already have it in the bag.”

Because he was a noble’s son and his father had likely bought his way through training. “I wouldn’t go bounding off to training just yet. Not in the blind pursuit of glory.”

“And why not?”

“Because I can tell you right now with absolute certainty you won’t be getting any. Name one time in the last five hundred years that Egypt has even _had_ a war.”

“I…well, there was that one time…damn it!” He sent a sideways glare in my direction. “I hate it when you’re right, did you know that? As much as people like us hate our lots in life, we’re too afraid of Akhenaten and his senseless cruelty to even attempt to rise up, monsters and Daemons are the stuff of story books, bandits and nomads aren’t likely to come in out of the desert and the most exciting thing I’d be doing is chasing members of that little cabal of thieves which sprung up a handful of years ago. It’d be night patrols. Tax collection. Guarding grain silos. I don’t want to be stuck guarding grain silos, Ma’at!”

I took a small step to the right, putting a bit more distance between us. “Hey, calm down, I’m not going to make you.”

From the way that Kephri was looking at me he didn’t seem quite sure of the truth of that statement.

“Are you going to tell me what’s been on your mind or not?” he asked a few moments later. “Please don’t try to tell me that the return of your bimonthly ‘I’m a freak’ complex was all that it was. I know better.”

“Later.” Darkness had yet to fully fall, but the torches had already been lit outside the grain silo and the small lights from oil lanterns flickered in Waset’s near-distant windows. “It isn’t something that’s safe to discuss outside of the house. Not with the blasphemy laws.”

“This has to do with the old pantheon?”

I nodded but kept quiet, hyper aware of the pair of men guarding the building. Soldiers. I hated soldiers.

They followed us with suspicious eyes as we approached, leaning against the spears in their hands and the cold mud bricks which made up the building. Sensing my distress my brother shifted closer, pressing his shoulder lightly against mine.

We pulled the baskets down from our backs and set them on the ground outside the silo. The scribe stationed there glared down his hooked nose at us, his white Shendyt-spotless and much longer than our own-smelling pungently of ink.

“The pair of you are late; all of the other peasants have gone home. What were you doing?”

I dipped my head. Beside me, Kephri bristled. “Slow work day. It was my fault, Sir. I’m sorry.”

“There’ll be docked wages for that.”

My brother hissed. I kicked him in the shin. The scribe was too busy recording something on the papyrus scroll that he held to notice. Thankfully he kept quiet until we were walking away each of us holding a small clay jug full of beer, heading back towards the little home where we’d grown up.

“Docked wages? _Docked wages_? That Ntiu bastard; it’s completely ridiculous!” The contents of the jug that he was holding sloshed audibly as if reflecting his annoyance. “We’re already working ourselves to the bone in the hot sun day after day, year after year, and ‘donating’ sixty percent of our harvest to the ‘communal’ food supplies. Most of which ends up in the bellies or lining the coffers of the nobility who can’t be bothered to get off their perfumed asses and work a day in their life yet are all too happy to make _our lives_ miserable whenever they get the chance!”

“Keep your voice down!” My eyes darted around the narrow street we were now standing on. A stray dog rose from where it had rested in the shade of a home, recovered from the heat of the day, and trotted off to find a meal. Woman in kalasiris of coarse linen rushed home from the market or their jobs weaving, bread making and brewing, balancing jugs and baskets atop their heads. A small pack of young children, appearing between the ages of four and six and as of yet unburdened by the need for clothes, went running down a narrow alleyway. “You’ll get us in trouble if someone hears you. We don’t want to give them a reason, do we?”

The dust of the road had coated our muddy feet in a thin layer of pale grey. The sun had fully disappeared by now, the last hints of the day past visible only in the form of nebulous pink clouds which clung close to the horizon. Kephri flipped his black curls out of his eyes.

“You’re right, sorry. You know I get a bit carried away from time to time.”

“I’ll say.” I said. “Come on, we’ve never been out this late and I’m sure that Enna and Hesra are starting to worry.”

We picked up our pace to almost a run.

Hesra poked her head out of the door of our lopsided house just as we came tearing around the corner and narrowly avoided being trampled as Kephri and I stampeded through the door. My brother reached out to steady her as I fell against the wall to catch my breath.

“Barreling through the door without warning! Running through the streets at night! Were the pair of you raised in a barn?”

“A barn? Not as far as I remember. I recall being raised here by our beautiful Aunt and wise Uncle.”

“The effect falls a bit flat when you say the line between gasps, little brother.” He set the jug in his hands down beside the door. “But really Auntie, what were you expecting taking in a three and four year old off the streets!”

“What else were we to do after your mother died? On the street and that young, Ma’at wouldn’t have been able to hide! And even if he hadn’t needed to, you’re family. We couldn’t just leave you out there.” The small entry way was extremely cramped with three people attempting to occupy it at once but she didn’t seem inclined to let us in quite yet. Hesra stood with a set jaw and cocked hip; I knew that posture. There was a scolding on the way. “Where have the both of you been? Your Uncle and I have been worried sick! I know by now that you, Kephri, would never miss a meal and Ma’at is usually responsible!”

“You say that like I’m _not_ responsible!” Frankly, I was shocked that Kephri was surprised. “Why the reason that we’re both late instead of just Ma’at being late is because his distraction has reached a concerning level to the point that it’s started to affect his work. I didn’t like the thought of him heading home alone, so I waited to accompany him.”

I always hated being the center of attention, and this was no different. When Hesra’s eyes fell on me, joining my brother’s, I fidgeted uncomfortably.

“Something has been bothering you?” I shrugged and looked down. I couldn’t see my feet-the jug that I was holding was in the way-so I closely scrutinized the clay lid instead. “Do you know?”

Kephri shook his head. “No.” He tried to take the jug from me and only succeeded with considerable effort; I hadn’t realized how tightly I’d been clutching it until now and was more than just a little bit reluctant to let it go. “He wouldn’t tell me what was bothering him so much while we were outside. Said it was because of the blasphemy laws.” The jug made a hollow sounding clank as it was set down beside the other. “All the better that he waited if that is the case. Enna is a much better authority on the stories of old than I am and I doubt that Ma’at would be very pleased by the prospect of having to explain himself twice.”

No, I definitely wouldn’t be ‘very pleased’ to have to explain myself twice. I wasn’t very pleased to have to explain myself _at all_! Bad enough I couldn’t stop it, I’d rather not think about it when I didn’t have to.

Not that the matter hadn’t already consumed me.

“Well, go in and sit down both of you. The food has just finished cooking; we were waiting on the two of you to eat.”

Kephri didn’t waste a moment in bounding through the inner door in pursuit of the smell of food. Reluctantly, knowing that it wouldn’t be the peaceful dinner I was used to, I followed. Aware that I’d be stared at, certainly, the focal point of attention. Exactly what I didn’t want to be.

“Boys, there you are!” My Uncle moved to get up but his lamed leg refused to support his weight. Though the expression of pain which passed across his face was well hidden I still caught it and winced. “Where have you been?”

“The fields, working. Like every day.” My brother flopped down onto one of the empty mats.

“It was my fault that we were late, Uncle. I’m sorry.” I took up a post on the last mat as Hesra returned with one of the jugs from the front room, pouring beer into all of our glasses. “My work today was slow. Kephri waited on me so that I wouldn’t have to walk through the streets alone.”

“Can you blame us for being worried about you, Ma’at? You’re never late.” A deep cut traced the width of Aah’s upper arm looking as if it had only recently stopped bleeding. He must have taken part in another joust over fishing territory; they seemed to be getting more frequent. “We thought for sure that one of the soldiers had- _ouch_! By the Sun God, Nephthys, that hurt!”

“Good! You certainly deserved it to for saying something like that knowing how nervous he already is over his condition! Are you trying to scare the poor boy?”

Kephri chuckled and, despite everything, I found myself hiding a small smirk behind my hand.

“Laugh at me while you can, boys. This will be the two of you in a few more years.” The fisherman rubbed his head where he’d been struck. “You won’t be laughing then.”

“Of course we will be. We have better sense than to marry a weaver.”

“Ma’at!” Nephthys took a swipe at me but wasn’t close enough and missed; something for which I was grateful given the fact that I knew from experience how much her blows could hurt.

“Now now, Nephthys, I can’t have you visiting harm on either of my nephews no matter how much cheek they might have.” Hesra’s tone wasn’t quite as sharp is it should have been, given how stubborn the other woman was. “Eat your food, Ma’at, before your brother does. You can tell us about what’s on your mind after dinner.”

“Something’s on your mind?”

I shoved a piece of bread into my mouth instead of answering, my cheeks puffing out like a mouse with a mouth full of grain. Kephri almost choked on his boiled perch in an effort to stop himself from laughing.

Dinner passed fairly normally, if a bit too quickly for my liking. Hesra and Nephthys discussed the merits of the vertical loom over the more traditional basket one and argued over the proper ratios of wheat to barley meant to be used in the bread for making beer. Kephri indulged Aah in listening to him retell one of his favorite fish tails-the one time he’d fallen off the boat during a particularly slow day and had supposedly wrestled a crocodile, which we’d both probably heard close to a thousand times between us and knew wasn’t true-while both cast curious gazes intermittently in my direction. Enna watched me throughout, his measured gaze a heavy weight, and it was all that I could do not to meet his eyes.

Once all of the food was gone and our cups had been drained my brother turned gleefully towards me and triumphantly demanded “well, spill it.”

Nothing for it now.

“I’ve been having strange dreams. A strange dream, more accurately.” I fingered the cold ceramic in my hands. “It’s the same one every night.”

Red sand. Gold blood. A sky turned an ominous shade of black.

“I keep seeing a fight. A fight in a dry lakebed between a pair of Gods. I recognize one of them as Horus from the old stories that you used to tell us when we were small, but the other…he looked like a monster. Hooved feet; a forked tail; and his face,” I shuddered at the memory, “it didn’t look like any animal I’ve ever seen before. It looked like some sort of Daemon.”

Wiry russet hair. Red eyes. A curved almost canine snout fill with sharp fangs.

“I’ve been so confused ever since I started seeing it. Their fight. Confused about what purpose it had that something felt the need to show me it night after night for a month on end. Trying to think back to the stories and remember any reference to a God that might have looked like the one that Horus was fighting but I couldn’t remember or even begin to guess.” A thin film of white froth clung to the bottom of my glass. “I probably should have brought it up earlier, Uncle, after all visions can be dangerous even when interpreted correctly but…I didn’t know what to do.”

I’d never seen such a grim expression on anyone’s face before, and to see it on Enna now was deeply concerning. It made him look older, incredibly so, and made me want to bolt.

“You do not remember mention of a God matching the description that you have given for a reason, Ma’at. I’ve made it a point to never mention Osiris’ twin brother, Set. He was the God of Storms and War, the Lord of the Desert and a servant of the Daemon God Apophis. He murdered his brother and usurped his throne only to be driven out of Heliopolis when Horus returned for his birth rite, and was brought down after fleeing deep into the desert.”

“But what does this have to do with me?”

“Nothing.” Enna’s eyes traveled from my face to my hair. “Or so I’d hoped, and prayed, since the moment I first saw you. I knew that the color of your hair was an omen of some form, but I had hoped that it was a good one. A sign of the return of the true Gods of Egypt. The touch of Ra, or Sekhmet. Of course the potential for it to be Set’s influence instead was always there. Because just as green is predominately associated with House Life and Osiris, red is predominately associated with House Storm and the Betrayer.”

Time to add another subject line to my Reasons Why I Hate the Color Red list:

Reason #4 – I hate the color red because it’s a potential sign of the touch of a Daemon God and a Ka capable of supporting a connection to one of the most destructive Houses of Divine Heka despite being mortal.

Marvelous.

I could hope that I wouldn’t be adding a #5 soon, but with the way my luck swung I was pretty sure that that would just be kidding myself.

“So,” my hands were shaking so badly that I almost knocked my cup over as I set it down, “I’m evil? Is that what you’re saying?”

“No, Ma’at, it doesn’t mean _you_ are evil but something evil may be coming: Set himself or worse, his master.” My Uncle reclined on his hands, taking a bit of weight off of his bad leg. “Egypt is already suffering. The harvests weaken every year. Plagues of disease ravage entire cities without warning. Even the merchants from other lands come less and less. If Apophis were to return here the land would die for certain; in the absence of the Gods there’d be no one to stop him. Aten is nothing more than a lie and no mortal force could stand against the World Devouring Serpent alone.”

“Didn’t you say that Horus killed Set?” Kephri didn’t seem in the least bit bothered by the talk of Gods and omens, and I wasn’t surprised to see that was the case. He’d more than made it clear on a number of occasions that Aten wasn’t the only thing he didn’t believe in. Sometimes I couldn’t help but think that he had a point. Where had the Gods gone to if they did exist and why? “If he’s dead how could he come back?”

“Immortals cannot be permanently killed, Kephri. Only imprisoned or temporarily banished. It’s already been five hundred years since the Pesedjet vanished and Set could be reborn any day. He might already be out there even as we speak.”

Or he could be a lot closer than any of us wanted to consider. But if that were the case…wouldn’t I know?

“We aren’t little children anymore, Uncle. You don’t need to go out of your way to try and frighten us into staying inside at night.”

“Not that it worked with you, Kephri, even when we did try.” Hesra sounded appropriately exasperated with my brother’s near unending bad behavior. “Speaking of staying inside at night, it’s late and I’m certain that we’re all tired. Time for bed.”

“But-.”

“No, Kephri! Bed!” There was an edge to her tone sharp enough to silence even my stubborn brother. Her eyes flickered to Enna in a brief look that spoke to a quiet conversation after the oil lanterns had gone out though whether it was about the story or what he had-or hadn’t-said about me I couldn’t tell.

I wasn’t sure that I even wanted to know anyway.

As my Aunt and brother went about dousing the lanterns I retrieved my headrest from the corner and curled up on my mat. It was hard and left me with a nasty crook in my neck, but I couldn’t exactly expect much else; the thing had been made for keeping scorpions at bay, not for comfort.

Darkness fell completely inside the little room as the last flame was snuffed out. For a short time I could hear my family rustling around on their own mats, trying to find a comfortable position, and a series of barely audible whispers from where Enna and Hesra lay together opposite me, but soon enough everything dropped off into the soft sounds of deep breathing.

Still, I lay awake.

The moon rose higher and higher until it was staring in through the windows at me.

Sleep wouldn’t come.

Not that I anticipated its arrival with any sort of eagerness. Not when I knew, by now, that the moment I closed my eyes I’d be back in that dry lakebed, watching Set tear out Horus’ eye and Horus run his blade through his heart. No matter how tired I was, I didn’t need to see any of _that_ again. But I wasn’t in any real danger of falling asleep anytime soon regardless of how tired I was. Not with how quickly my thoughts were racing.

Red. The color of Set. Red. The color of my hair. Immortals couldn’t really die. If they were killed they’d always come back. Be reborn.

 _Would_ I know?

I sat up quickly and put my head between my knees before I could start to hyperventilate. I didn’t want to start panicking and end up shocking someone or hitting something that catch fire like one of the lanterns sitting in the windows.

Lightning. Like what one might expect from a Storm God. I’d never been out in the desert at all, let alone during one of my episodes, but I couldn’t help but wonder… If I were to be around sand and rock when one happened would the earth react instead?

Set. God of Storms. Lord of the Desert. Betrayer.

It could just be a coincidence.

I fumbled with the clay beads on my left wrist with my right hand, sawing them back and forth in a repeated motion which had always served to calm me in the past. It did next to nothing now. I had to get out. Get out and walk and calm down and… And maybe leave. Leave and not come back. Maybe my family would be safer that way. Safer away from me.

Maybe I shouldn’t make any rash decisions before I was of sure what was actually happening.

I looked over at my brother to find him curled up on his own mat facing away from me, the moonlight throwing bars of silver across his scarred back. Kephri would be my best bet at being able to leave and come back without running into any soldiers-he had experience gallivanting around after curfew after all where I had none-but I knew that if I brought him with me the peace that I needed would be the last thing I’d end up with.

I’d just have to go alone and hope for the best.

I picked my way across the little room, stepping cautiously over the others on the floor, and slipped into the front room. Peering carefully around the doorframe to check for any soldiers patrolling nearby, I scanned the ground for signs of snakes and scorpions and stepped out onto the street outside.

During the day, especially now that the hotter months of the Ahket flooding season were only days away, the streets and fields of Waset were miserably hot but by night they were much cooler. The wind blew and I couldn’t help shivering in only my Shendyt; for a brief moment I couldn’t help but envy the nobility for their ability to afford the cloaks necessary to fend off the nighttime temperatures.

Not that it was really a problem for most peasants considering the fact that we weren’t supposed to be out and about beyond an hour passed nightfall. After all, those in society who worked hard for next to nothing couldn’t be trusted not to steal from those who worked for nothing and got everything. If I was caught… I really didn’t want to think about the potential punishment, even for such a small infraction.

Enna had been lamed for something similarly insignificant, and all because Haroeri felt threatened by the amount of respect that our friends and neighbors held for him. All the more reason to hate the rich and the Pharaoh and the soldiers that supported them and to lock it all up deep inside where it could never get out. Because all we could do was grin and bear it without even so much as the quietest peep. Nothing more was tolerated.

It almost made me wish that the color of my hair meant what I had come to fear it did, because even if Set was evil surely he’d be better than Akhenaten. And no matter how many Priests of the ‘Sun God’ the Pharaoh had at his disposal their Heka wouldn’t be enough to stand against the full power of the true God.

Especially not a sibling of Osiris.

A shooting star cut across the heavenly Nile in a streak of bright silver. The dark velvet of the night sky fading from black into a pale lilac the closer it came to the river of glittering lights. Were I able to divine their words, would they prophecy a better world? Or would there never be any change at all?

“Hey! You’re not supposed to be out here!”

Fashkh! A soldier had come up the road behind me well I’d been distracted and I hadn’t noticed the light of his torch before it was too late to duck out of sight. I could only be grateful for the darkness of night having obscured my face from clear view as I took off down a curving side street.

“Get back here!”

Running footsteps and, worse yet, the barking of a dog echoed out from behind me as I skidded around a number of corners and darted down a handful of streets. I was going to get lost for sure, I was certain of that much, but it didn’t matter. Not at the moment. All that I cared about was getting away as more shouting voices joined the first. Soldiers scattering down every street. Every man and hound on patrol was on my tail, it seemed.

I made one right turn too many and almost plowed face first into a dead end. My attempt to backtrack wasn’t swift enough and one of my pursuers blocked the only route of escape that I had. Lunging at me with his weapon raised. I threw up my arm in a futile effort to protect myself and turned away, not wanting to see the sword as it lay into my flesh.

A loud explosion rang out as the little alley was filled with blinding light, a charge of heat skittering along the skin of my arms before dissipating abruptly. Leaving behind the mingled scents of electricity and cooked meat. I blinked the spots from my vision just as two more soldiers rounded the corner, staring in horror at the man now lying at my feet burned so badly that he was no longer recognizable as human.

I’d killed someone. I’d _killed_ someone. Sure it was an accident and he’d been trying to wound or outright kill me himself-either because he’d mistaken me for a criminal or simply because he could-but it was still a terrible thing to realize. I’d killed someone. I was dangerous. And I’d done it out in the open. I could taste metallic bile at the back of my throat.

My greatest fear had become a reality.

The men were more cautious in their approach than their fallen comrade had been, shouting at me and to each other in coarse voices though for the life of me I couldn’t understand a word of what they were saying. My hearing was muffled, as if my ears had been filled with sand, and there was a distant ringing originating somewhere in the back of my head.

They grabbed me roughly and pulled me from the alley, one bringing the butt of their sword down on the back of my skull. My head snapped forward with the force of the blow and little balls of color popped in front of me, this time having nothing to do with momentary blindness after an explosive use of accidental Heka. I stumbled and tripped and their bruising grip was the only thing that kept me from falling as they continued to drag me forwards.

Digging my heels in made no difference. All efforts to shake loose their hold were in vain; it certainly didn’t help my case that compared to theirs, my arms looked like twigs. I was trapped with no hope of getting free and had a fairly good idea of exactly where it was that I was being taken. Not the Palace-wouldn’t want to disturb the Pharaoh at such a late hour over such trivial matters as a peasant even if he was a murderous freak-but Haroeri’s manor.

I was fairly certain I’d meet a worse fate here.

I tripped over the threshold of the gated garden and was carted passed the stone lined pool, its placid lotus scattered surface reflecting the starry sky above us. My toe caught on the frame of the door and I balked, receiving another harsh blow as reward for my trouble. They hauled me through the majority of the house so quickly that I barely got the chance to look around, only managing to notice the stone tiles lining the floor and the fact that the walls had been washed in color.

Haroeri was in the drawing room, dressed in a pleated shirt of fine linen and wearing jewelry of gold and precious stones. Though he had removed his wig on account of the later hour his makeup was perfectly in place and he stilled smelled strongly of expensive perfume. His angular, mongoose-like features and sharp amber eyes focused on me as I was roughly released, knocking my knees against the tile floor.

“What have you dragged _that_ in for, Harpira?” his voice was a high, reedy drawl. “Have you perhaps considered that I have better things to be doing at this time of night than dealing with his ilk? Explain!”

Harpira? I hadn’t been able to get a good enough look at my captors between the darkness my own shock and the position at which I’d been held, but just when I had felt sure my situation couldn’t get any worse one of the soldiers who had caught me had to turn out to be Haroeri’s son. Who Kephri had just insulted a few hours before.

“I was on patrol when I saw him gallivanting around the streets past the curfew for his kind; he bolted when he saw me and pretty soon everyone in the area was looking for him. He killed Isnka when he cornered in in a dead end alleyway; his brother is probably still out there.”

“Breaking the law, Ma’at? Running around after dark with that worthless cur you call a brother? Fleeing from authority? Killing your betters? I’m quite disappointed; had thought you much better behaved.”

I couldn’t care less if he was ‘disappointed’ beyond the fact that it was a state of being certain to bring me more pain.

“Better behaved indeed. I should have expected this from you, really. After all, only true evil follows the law to the very letter. Hiding behind a mask of good makes those around you lower their guard. Makes it easier for you to play your wicked little games. Doesn’t it, Seba!”

“I’m not playing any games, Sir.” I mumbled, already aware that my protests would fall on willfully deaf ears.

“Lying too, now? What would the cripple say if he knew what he’d raised?”

My fists clenched so hard that my nails drew blood.

“Where is Kephri? Whenever there’s trouble in Waset your brother is never very far away.”

“Kephri is at home, Sir. He didn’t come with me. No one in my family knows that I’m here. I needed to head out to think. To clear my head. I didn’t want to cause trouble.”

 “You didn’t want to cause trouble?”

I shook my head. “No, Sir.”

I really hadn’t. I didn’t want to hurt anyone, no matter how much I might have disliked them or how bad of a person they may have been. I hadn’t set out that night to break any laws or cause trouble. It was just what had ended up happening.

His hand came down without warning, grabbing a fistful of my hair and yanking my head back with so much force that I thought he was going to break my neck. He shook me roughly like a child’s toy in a jackal’s jaws, the plains of his face alit with near Daemonic anger.

“You didn’t want to cause trouble? You’ve murdered a soldier! Lesser things are punishable by death, especially for a disposable cretin like you!” Spittle flecked my face. He was close enough that I could smell his breath; fermented spices and sour wine. “How did you do it? A knife? Did you steal his own weapon from him? Was it an ambush? Speak, or I’ll drag you before the Pharaoh myself!”

My hair! His hand! My hair! _The dye!_ My heart was pounding so hard that it felt as if it were trying to shatter itself against my ribcage. I was so frightened that it was all I could do to splutter “it was an accident! I swear!”

“An accident?” he shook me again. I felt like my hair was being uprooted from my scalp and was afraid that any moment blood would start to trickle down between my eyes. “An accident!”

“Yes! An accident! I didn’t mean to!”

“Look at you! Sitting there, sniveling like a coward! Tears running down your face, as if crying is going to save you! Disgusting!” He released me roughly and I fell backwards, my head bouncing off the floor with a loud crack, but the pain barely registered. I was panting and no matter how heavily I breathed it felt as if I couldn’t get enough air. The room swam as I desperately tried to look anywhere but at the smear of black pigment now painted across his palm.

Did the other two notice it? Was my hair showing? Please, please, _please_ don’t let him look!

There went my atrocious luck again. No doubt noticing the foreign oily sensation between his fingers he looked down. Haroeri stared for almost a minute before he finally seemed to realize what it was.

“Dye? What else are you hiding, you worthless little mutt!” Turning away from me he bellowed “Ranno!”

I flinched at the volume of his shout, eyes darting around the room in search of any route of escape. Windows? Too small and too high. Door? Maybe. Harpira and the other soldier were standing at a neglectfully far distance from it should they suddenly find the need to block my path. They may have proven themselves to be considerably stronger than I was but they’d also proven to be slower and I was confident that once I started running the likelihood that they would be able to catch me was low.

It all depended on how quickly I could get to the door.

Using the arrival of the servant girl Haroeri had called for as a distraction I shifted off of my knees and up into a crouch. Slowly pivoting so that I’d be facing the door when I needed to move. The instant that she cleared the doorframe, I’d bolt.

“Draw water into a wash basin-don’t bother to heat it-and bring it back here. If you’re not quick enough you’ll get the lash! We must learn what that wretched boy is hiding!”

Through her curtain of unplaited black hair she looked at me with pity in her eyes and must have recognized the intent in mine because she shook her head. The motion was slight, almost imperceptible, but a clear warning not to do what I had in mind. Not to try and run for it. Not to make things worse for myself.

Or for my family.

She was right. Running would only put off the inevitable and make the fallout even more damaging. The best that I could hope for now was that my family wouldn’t be punished to harshly for concealing my existence and that my other crimes wouldn’t be ascribed to them.

I settled on my haunches and lowered my weight back onto my knees, breaking my gaze from hers as she rose and hurried out of the room.

Haroeri paced wall to wall, the constant motion and dark muttering only making me more agitated. I could hear the soldiers shifting behind me but didn’t dare turn to look. After what seemed like an age Ranno returned with another servant, carrying a large ceramic basin full on water between them which they set on the floor in the middle of the room.

“Get up!” That punishing hand came down again, pulling me upright and ripping my feet from beneath me. Pain lanced through my head and I let out the sharp whimper of a beaten dog as I was dragged across the tile floor and thrown down beside it. “You two, wash him! Make sure to be thorough: I want every last trace of that dye gone!”

I barely had the chance to suck in a breath before my head was shoved forward into the basin, not that doing so really made a difference. My brow bounced off the bottom and the jarring force of the impact combined with the temperature of the water knocked the wind out of me and I went temporarily cross eyed. Dazed confused and unable to breathe as I squinted through the murk and tried not to swallow any more of it after accidentally sucking down half a lungful.

Unclean. Clouded with silt. This wasn’t drawn from the pump in the garden outside. It wasn’t the clean water that the nobility used to bathe. It was straight from the Nile; filthy and cold.

No wonder it had taken so long.

I was yanked back upright seconds away from losing consciousness, tears and river water streaming from my eyes and from my mouth and nose as I spluttered and coughed. Blinking dye-laced rivulets from my burning eyes as the mix of Kohl and scented oil washed out of my hair, joining the makeup running down my face in rivulets of greyish black.

“I said wash it out! Keep going!”

I was shoved back down again, my legs pinned to prevent me from kicking and my flailing arms ignored. Over and over until, through some miracle, I managed to upset the basin and send the water inside spilling across the floor.

But tipping the basin had come too late. The cat was out of the bag, and from the way the soldiers scrambled back and Haroeri turned white one would have thought that said cat was a blood crazed lion instead of something sad and half drowned left sitting in a puddle. All I could do was lay on my back and shiver, coughing up a foul mix of water and phlegm as my crimson fringe stuck to my face like sopping strands of river grass.

For a while it was as if the world had fallen silent aside from my ragged breathing, and then Haroeri found his voice.

“The Pharaoh will not be pleased.”


End file.
